Some officials wanted lobster. Others wanted campaign cash. At least one wanted no part of the gifts and dinners and trips that were routinely paid for by contractors doing business with South County schools.

According to thousands of pages of grand jury testimony released Tuesday, Sweetwater schools and Southwestern College operated a brazen pay-to-play contracting practice that saw millions of dollars of work go to contractors willing to pick up the tab for trustees and administrators.

“I know for a fact that -- for a fact -- that they selected contractors that were contributing to their, to their re-election, and doing whatever they wanted them to do,” testified contractor Hector Romero, not a defendant in the case.

At another point, he said some of the dinners were excessive.

“They drank all my liquor,” he testified about one August 2010 gathering.

The transcripts were released over the objections of numerous defense attorneys, who argued that allowing the public to see the unrebutted witness testimony could undermine their clients’ right to a fair trial. The defendants have pleaded not guilty.

The judge hearing the South County corruption case rejected those arguments and ordered the release of the testimony from dozens of trustees, contractors, district employees and others involved in the case.

U-T San Diego scoured hundreds of pages that detailed much of what already has been reported in the bribery scandal that led to indictments of 15 educators and contractors.

The documents, which could only be read in person and not photocopied, portray an interlinking network of elected officials and administrators who made no secret of requesting food, travel and other amenities from people who did business with the district.

“Do you recall who paid for any food and beverages that you may have ordered?” prosecutor Leon Schorr asked contractor Rene Flores at one point.

“We always pay,” responded Flores, not a defendant in the case.

Flores’ company was in charge of managing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of construction projects approved by the Sweetwater board.

Flores, who was not among the 15 people facing charges in the case, said he pursued the same business practices as most contractors seeking to work with South County school officials.

“To be honest, it’s always done that way in all the agencies,” Flores testified. “They meet outside for dinners. Not just with me, with other consultants.”

Not everyone accepted gifts or campaign donations from contractors.

Former Sweetwater Trustee Jaime Mercado, not a defendant, testified that he ran for office in 2004 in an attempt to put a stop to what he heard was a culture of corruption at Sweetwater.

“One of the things I really, really objected to, and I told that to the superintendent at the time, was stop buying board members, stop co-opting their votes, stop getting gifts for them, contributions, donations,” he told the grand jury.

In all, about 3,000 pages of the 4,200 pages of testimony were released Tuesday. Most of the rest will be made available in a week or two, once about 18 pages of redacted materials are blacked out.

The testimony indicates that former Sweetwater Superintendent Jesus Gandara had a strong preference for lobster — and for not paying for his own meals.

In one filing, defense attorney Paul Pfingst argued to the court that sections of testimony against Gandara should be withheld because they are prejudicial to his client.

Specifically, Pfingst objected to testimony by contractor and cooperating witness Henry Amigable, who told the grand jury that Gandara grew angry when there was no lobster available at a particular restaurant.

“And there is a story about him walking out of a luncheon with a vendor because he didn’t have — they didn’t serve lobster at the restaurant,” Amigable stated. “And so I was warned that if I didn’t have lobster at that restaurant that he would walk out of my dinner.”

Another witness named Steve Scogin backed up the story in his testimony.

“That was another one of those notches where I said ‘This is just weird. This is going too far,’” Scogin testified.

Mercado testified that former Sweetwater board member Gregory Sandoval questioned him about why he repeatedly refused to accept food, travel or other gifts from Sweetwater contractors.

“He asked me, ‘Don’t you and your wife socialize?’ I said, ‘Yes, but not on somebody else’s dime,’” Mercado testified.

The investigation, which District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis called among the worst public corruption cases she has ever uncovered, began after U-T Watchdog reported a series of questionable dealings between Sweetwater officials and contractors.

It expanded to Southwestern College and to San Ysidro School District, which are also served by some of the same officials.